George Stevens, (born December 18, 1904, Oakland, California, U.S.—died March 8, 1975, Lancaster, California), American director known for films that exhibited intelligence, great humanism, and brilliant camera techniques. His classic movies include the screwball comedy Woman of the Year (1942), the action-adventure Gunga Din (1939), and the dramas A Place in the Sun (1951) and Giant (1956).

Early work

Stevens, who was born to professional actors, began performing onstage at the age of five. He remained in his father’s theatrical troupe as an actor and, eventually, a stage manager. While still a teenager, he entered the film industry as a cameraman, and in the early 1920s he became a cinematographer at Hal Roach Studios. His first production there was the Laurel and Hardy short Roughest Africa (1923). Stevens shot a number of other two-reelers starring the comedy duo, including Sugar Daddies (1927), Two Tars (1928), and Below Zero (1930).

In 1933 Stevens directed his first feature, The Cohens and Kellys in Trouble, a B-film for Universal. The following year, at RKO, he made the low-budget romantic comedy Bachelor Bait with Stuart Erwin and Rochelle Hudson, and Kentucky Kernels, a Bert Wheeler–Robert Woolsey farce, with George (“Spanky”) McFarland, Noah Beery, and Margaret Dumont. Wheeler and Woolsey returned for the crime comedy The Nitwits (1935), which also featured Betty Grable. Laddie (1935) was nostalgic Americana, with John Beal and Gloria Stuart.

Stevens’s string of hits ended with Quality Street (1937), a tasteful but rather bland adaptation of the J.M. Barrie play. It starred Hepburn as an “old maid” who tricks a former beau (Franchot Tone) into falling in love with her. Moviegoers also largely avoided A Damsel in Distress (1937), a musical that featured Astaire but not Rogers, who was replaced by Joan Fontaine. The film, however, was praised for the “Fun House” number, which earned Hermes Pan an Oscar for best dance direction, and for the comedy of George Burns and Gracie Allen. Stevens then directed Rogers (sans Astaire) in Vivacious Lady (1938); she played a nightclub singer who weds a professor (James Stewart) who tries to keep the marriage a secret; Charles Coburn and Beulah Bondi provided comic support. A box-office hit, the screwball comedy ended Stevens’s slump.

Stevens had even more success with Gunga Din, which was one of the best films in 1939, a year known for its numerous classic motion pictures. The action adventure, which was inspired by the Rudyard Kipling poem of the same name, follows a trio of maverick British sergeants (Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) as they fend off an attack on their outpost in 19th-century colonial India. The film was noted for Stevens’s direction and the fine acting, especially that of Sam Jaffe as the always solicitous Gunga Din, an Indian water carrier who longs to become a British soldier. Vigil in the Night (1940), from an A.J. Cronin novel, featured Carole Lombard as a nurse who dedicates her life to the poor denizens of a remote hospital ward after her sister (Anne Shirley), who is also a nurse, accidentally causes a patient’s death. The grim drama was atypical for Lombard, who was better known for her comedies, and the film was a box-office failure, despite its uplifting conclusion.

Stevens subsequently departed RKO and went to Columbia, where he made Penny Serenade (1941), starring Grant and Irene Dunne, who had earlier teamed up for several screwball comedies. In this melodrama, however, they played a couple who adopt a baby after a miscarriage and then endure the pain of the child’s death six years later. Under Stevens’s direction, the film effectively combined tragedy with comedy to rise above more-standard tearjerkers. Grant returned for The Talk of the Town (1942), in which he played a fugitive, falsely accused of arson, who hides out in the home of a schoolteacher (Jean Arthur). A vacationing law professor (Ronald Colman) is also there, and the two men debate the law while competing for the teacher’s affections. Provocative, intelligent, and funny—the Oscar-nominated screenplay was written by Irwin Shaw and Sidney Buchman—The Talk of the Town received an Academy Award nomination for outstanding motion picture.

Charles Coburn in The More the MerrierCourtesy of Columbia Pictures CorporationStevens made two comedy classics in the 1940s. Woman of the Year (1942) was the first teaming of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, and some consider it their best vehicle. Garson Kanin came up with the original notion of having a gruff sportswriter (Tracy) woo and marry an upper-crust political columnist (Hepburn). When Kanin was drafted, however, he handed the concept over to his brother, Michael, and Ring Lardner, Jr. Their deft screenplay won an Oscar, and Hepburn was nominated as best actress. Just as funny (and romantic) was The More the Merrier (1943). Arthur starred as a government worker who patriotically rents half her small home to a retired man (Coburn) to help out during Washington, D.C.’s wartime housing crunch. The man, however, then rents half of his space to a soldier (Joel McCrea) and attempts to bring the two together. In addition to the excellent performances and witty script, the screwball comedy was noted for deliberately tweaking the censorship guidelines of the Hays Office; for example, Coburn’s character repeatedly recited Adm. David Farragut’s quote “Damn the torpodoes. Full steam ahead!,” flaunting the office’s ban on the word damn. The film earned six Academy Award nominations, including outstanding motion picture, and Stevens also received a nod for best director; Coburn was the lone winner.

Soon after completing the film, Stevens joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps, where he was made head of the motion-pictures unit. His assignments included filming the Normandy Invasion and the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. His World War II work had a profound affect on Stevens, which was evident in his subsequent films. Whereas his earlier works were often optimistic, his later movies were characterized by a sense that tragedy is implicit in all human life.

After two years of working in development, Stevens made his first postwar feature, I Remember Mama (1948), for RKO. It was based on the nostalgic stories of Kathryn Forbes about her Norwegian immigrant family’s struggle to adjust to life in turn-of-the-century San Francisco; it had been successfully dramatized on Broadway in 1943 by John Van Druten. The longish but well-observed film starred Dunne as the rock to which various family members (Barbara Bel Geddes and Ellen Corby, among others) cleave. All three actresses were nominated for Oscars, as was Oskar Homolka, who played the eccentric Uncle Chris.

Stevens then turned his sights on a more-ambitious project, Shane (1953). The classic western, which was based on a novel by John Schaefer, starred Alan Ladd as an erstwhile gunslinger who becomes a ranch hand for the Starrett family (Arthur, Van Heflin, and Brandon deWilde). However, when a hired gun (Jack Palance) rides into town on the orders of a greedy cattle baron (Emile Meyer) and starts killing ranchers, Shane realizes he will have to strap on his guns once more. The film, which was especially noted for an intelligent script and stunning cinematography, received six Oscar nominations, including best motion picture and director; cinematographer Loyal Griggs was the lone winner.

Stevens earned further acclaim for The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), which was adapted from the acclaimed Broadway show that recounts the true story of a young Jewish girl who goes into hiding with her family during World War II. It was the director’s first attempt to deal onscreen with the horrors of war that he had witnessed firsthand. The claustrophobic setting is effective, but the film, as was Stevens’s wont, was about three hours long. Millie Perkins played Anne Frank, with Joseph Schildkraut as her father and Winters and Ed Wynn as others who are in hiding with Frank’s family. The film possesses great cumulative power, and it received eight Oscar nominations, including a nod for best motion picture and another nod to Stevens for best director.

The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) rode in on the wave of biblical spectacles that was then popular. However, the production ran over schedule and budget. It was also overly long. Initially exhibited at 4 hours and 20 minutes, it endured a number of subsequent edits, with one version clocking in at nearly half the time of the original. Despite an all-star cast—which included Charlton Heston, Max von Sydow (as Christ), Sidney Poitier, Angela Lansbury, John Wayne, and Telly Savalas—the film was widely ridiculed, and it ranks among the biggest box-office failures. Stevens’s final film was The Only Game in Town (1970), adapted by Frank D. Gilroy from his play. The modest picture, with Warren Beatty and Taylor most appealing as small-time Las Vegas entertainers who try (and fail) to keep their affair casual, belatedly returned the director to the unadorned storytelling of his earlier works.

Assessment

Stevens’s films were praised for effective camera work and overall visual composition, qualities that reflected his time as a cinematographer. In addition, his productions were known for the careful integration of music and visuals and for the skillful handling of sentimental themes. Stevens was also noted for his attention to detail and extensive research. His meticulousness sometimes resulted in longer shooting schedules and greater costs, much to the annoyance of studio executives. Stevens, however, was convinced that his audience was intelligent enough to appreciate his efforts, and, indeed, films that were not well received in his time—especially The Greatest Story Ever Told—later came in for positive critical reappraisal. In all, he was nominated five times for an Academy Award as best director, winning two times, and six of his films earned best picture nominations. In addition, in 1954 Stevens received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

Stevens served as president of the Screen Directors Guild (now Directors Guild of America [DGA]; 1941–43, 1946–48) and of AMPAS (1958–59). The DGA awarded him its best director honours two times (for A Place in the Sun and Giant), as well as its D.W. Griffith Lifetime Achievement Award (now the Lifetime Achievement Award).

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